The article deals with methodological issues for evaluating the potential of Arctic hydrocarbon fields, which can be used to make strategic decisions on the management of oil and gas complex. A common approach to assess the effectiveness of projects to develop oil and gas fields is the analysis of material and financial flows arising from the project. These indicators serve as a basis to develop the necessary evaluation criteria for the effectiveness of all project participants. However, this approach lies in the financial analysis, not covering other areas of the analyzed gas fields, including their technical capacity, as well as to assess their impact on the socio-economic development of the placement. Inadequate attention to these areas as well as several one-sided approach to the issue, justified the need for a comprehensive assessment of potential hydrocarbon deposits in the Arctic, which is based on the level of development of the analyzed objects based on an expanded list describing characteristics. In this article the author's series of steps calculation of technical and economic potential of offshore oil and gas fields in the Arctic, which is in contrast to the existing ones, based on the integral index, which unites financial, technical, and climatic characteristics of the service and infrastructure fields, which allows to rank fields to determine the sequence and prioritize their inception. We prove the need to consider a wide range of factors in the comparative analysis of oil and gas fields in the Arctic in order to make strategic management decisions for priority development fields.

Key words: strategic management, Arctic, integral index, shelf hydrocarbon.